John moelby sweeney



(No Model.)

J. M. SWEENEY.

PORTABLE HAY AND GRAIN COVER. No. 328,437. Patented Oct. 13, 1885.

IN'VENTORL ATTORNEYS.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JOHN MORLEY SWEENEY, OF MONMOUTH, ILLINOIS, ASSIGN OR TO HIMSELF AND MORTIMER SHANNON BALDWIN, OF SAME PLACE.

PORTABLE HAY AND GRAIN COVER.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 328,437, dated October 13, 1885.

Application filed November 24, 1884. Serial No. 148,765.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, J OHN MORLEY SWEE- NEY, of Monmouth, in the county of Warren and State of Illinois, have invented a new and Improved Portable Hay and Grain Cover, &e., of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description.

This invention has mainly for its object the saving of that great waste which takes place in farm produce from exposure to the weather, and is more especially designed to cover or protect hay, oats, wheat,and otherlike produce put up in stacks, and which when left exposed during the winter or bad weather are liable to be seriously injured or destroyed.

My invention consists in a portable roof or cover made up of detachable hinged boards, all as hereinafter fully described, and pointed out in the claims.

Reference is to be had to the accompanying drawings, forming part of this specification, in which similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in all the figures.

Figure 1 represents an end elevation of my improved portable roof or cover when constructed to form a temporary shed or of a sharp angular or peak shape; Fig. 2, a similar View of the same, applicable to cover a stack flat or rounded on its top, and Fig. 3 an in side face view of one of the boards in part used in the construction of the cover with attached hinging devices for connecting it with the adjacent boards of the cover.

The boards A A of the roof or cover may be of any desired length, width, and thickness, and are hinged together by two or more crooked metal fastenings, B, secured at suitable distances apart to the inner faces of the boards, and arranged to extend transversely across the boards, the crooked portions of said fastenings being at each end thereof, and made to stand out from the inner face of the board. The upper crooked ends of said fastenings are made in the shape of an eye,

, b, and their lower ends in the form of a the eye of a fastening on a lower board swings as from a common center on the hook of the fastening on an upper board, and the upper (N0 model.)

rounded edge of each board is overlapped some distance by the lower edge portion of the board above it. This forms a close or water-tight joint between the meeting edges of the boards in different flexed positions of the hinged boards, and admits of a wide range of their angular adjustment without exposing an open joint to admit rain or snow. The boards are readily detached from each other and hooked or hinged together, as required, and the cover formed by them may be variously flexed to contract or expand it to give it different capacities and shapes.

\Vhen the structure is a peaked one, as shown in Fig. 1, which adapts it to form a temporary shed that by the continuity of the hinged connections will dispense with rafters and nails, and will rest firmly on the ground, then the fastenings on the two upper boards are in the form of angle-irons firmly binding said boards together and having only hooks c at their lower crooked ends; but when the structure is designed simply as a cover to a stack, and intended to be either rounded on its top or of flattened and angular shape, then the top board of all will have straight fastenings crooked only at their ends to form hooks c, as shown in Fig. 2.

If desired, the eyes I) and hooks c of the fastenings, instead of being in one piece with each other may be separate attachments to or 011 the inner faces of the boards, but made in one piece they serve to brace the boards.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

1. A portable shed or cover for stacked hay, grain, and the like, consisting of aseries of boards having their upper edges beveled or rounded off, and provided with metal fastenings on their inner faces having an eye at one end and a hook at the other, substantially as described.

2. A portable shed or cover for hay, grain, and the like, consisting of the boards A, provided with the fastenings B on their inner faces, the said fastenings having an eye, I), at one end and a hook, c, at the other, and ex tending transversely across the said boards, substantially as described.

WVitnesses: JOHN MORLEY SWEENEY.

JAS. E. MADDEN, GEORGE PEUGH, JOHN PORTER. 

